Chloe
by IseultLaBelle
Summary: Ange takes Chloe home from the SARC, and thinks back on all the times she's let her daughter down as she tries to help her recover. (And one occasion she just about managed to claw it back in time.)


**This might feel a bit strange, and you might get the end and wonder what on earth the different sections of this have to do with each other, but please do try and bear with me. There is a method to my madness and it will become clear in the next chapter, I promise! **

**Julie ****Fowlis is a Scottish folk singer, who sings mostly traditional Scots Gaelic songs. You've probably heard her singing even if you don't realise it- she voiced Merida on Disney's Brave soundtrack. The song Ange sings to Chloe at the end is Tha Mo Ghaol Air Àird A' Chuain, and there is a beautiful version of this by Julie, who sings it with her baby daughter on her lap, on youtube.**

**I'll be honest, I hate this. I don't feel I've got any of it right at all, I think it's a horrible mess and I won't be offended if you all agree with me. So as ever, I would be hugely grateful for reviews, whether you did enjoy it and you'd like me to continue or whether you agree it was a mess! Criticism also welcome. **

**-IseultLaBelle x **

**Prologue**

Chloe is limping.

Chloe is limping, leaning against her side heavily, walking with her legs abnormally far apart as though it hurts too much to bring them any closer together, and Ange can hardly bear it.

She remembers that feeling.

She remembers the pain, the stinging sensation, unbearable throbbing in places she hadn't even known could throb before, and nothing had seemed to make it any more bearable.

She'd pushed it to the back of her mind, barely a scar, nowadays, just like she'd always told Chloe.

It had faded, all of it, seemed… insignificant, somehow, once she had Chloe. Yes, it had been awful, horrific, unbearable, even, at the time, but then if she hadn't been put through it she would never have had Chloe, that was what Ange had always firmly believed.

And it was worth it for Chloe.

She'd go through it all again, knowing that pain would bring her Chloe, her beautiful, lovely daughter who made all the horrors that came before her fade away, forgotten, almost, irrelevant.

But now, watching Chloe struggling, traumatised, trembling, uncomfortable, sore, it's all come flooding back.

She can't bear it.

Because all of a sudden, she remembers exactly how it felt when it happened to her, remembers it as though it were yesterday, and Chloe… Chloe's having to go through that pain now, it shouldn't be happening to her, not to Chloe, her sweet girl who's too pure, too innocent, too kind and gentle and precious to go through any of this, Chloe…

Chloe shivers in her arms- and it's cold, Ange realises now, October chill setting in and Chloe doesn't even have a coat, it'll be with the rest of her things at the police station…

Ange pulls off her hospital issue hoodie, gently helps Chloe into it on top of her sweatshirt from the SARC, waits for her daughter to curl back into her chest again.

"Fletch is going to bring the car round, sweetheart, okay?" she soothes, hugs Chloe back with one arm, gently strokes her hair with her free hand. "His car. Ours are still at the cottage, the police said we can go and retrieve them from tomorrow, but there's no rush. We can think about that later, can't we? That's not priority right now, is it, you are. Fletch won't be long. Where do you want to go now?" she asks gently, presses Chloe into her side, squeezes, just wants to hold her, transfer some of her strength to her, through osmosis, perhaps, some kind of scientifically impossible, inexplicable mother-and-daughter osmosis. "Chloe? The police said they've brought your things from the cottage back to the police station on London Road, so we might as well go and collect those, mightn't we? We need to rescue your aortic valve research, don't we, we don't want to risk them losing it. I've heard brilliant things about that from Ms Naylor, we need to get that back. And then you'll have overnight stuff, won't you, so you could come back to mine? Or we can take you back to yours. Whatever you want. If you just want to sleep in your own bed, that's totally fine, but I don't think you should be on your own…"

"Can we go back to yours?" Chloe pleads, voice so faint that Ange has to strain to hear her.

"Of course we can. Of course we can, sweetheart, we can do whatever you want. Okay? You can stay at mine as long as you like, my love."

"Do you have to work tomorrow?"

The question takes her so by surprise, seems so… almost ridiculous, really, because to Ange, the answer is completely obvious.

Clearly, however, the steps she plans to take later, the phone call she'll be making to Sacha explaining she won't be in for the next few days, at the very least, the phone call she'll be making to Madani on Darwin after that, haven't even occurred to Chloe.

Does Chloe really think she's so far down her mother's priority list that she would even consider going into work tomorrow, whether she was due to be in or not? Has she really been so distracted, so distant over the last few months, so preoccupied with Dom, with Fletch, with the YAU, that she would even doubt her mum will be dropping everything, cancelling all her plans for the foreseeable future to take care of her, curl up on the sofa with her, watch DVDs, cook her dinner, set up the foot massager, hold her tightly through her tears and her numbness and everything in between as she tries to process it all, help her heal?

How could Chloe ever believe she'd rather be anywhere else, even for a moment?

She's let her down, Ange curses herself furiously.

She's let her daughter down yet again.

* * *

**Aberdeen, Wednesday 21 March, 2007**

_"I'm scared I can't do it."_

_Chloe trembles, fidgets with her hands nervously, bounces her legs, fixes her gaze firmly on the floor. _

_"Of course you can," Lauren insists. She's crouched in front of her friend, array of makeup and brushes and false eyelashes and hairspray and other paraphernalia spread out across the desk to the side, tilts Chloe's chin. "Look up. And close your eyes for me? Don't move, I'm doing your eyeliner. You're going to be brilliant, okay? Isn't she, Miss Lewis?"_

_"Definitely," Miss Lewis agrees. "Better than brilliant. You _can_do it, Chloe. We all know you can do it, we've seen you do it, we all know how amazing you are. You just need to believe in yourself. Okay? We all believe in you. And Lauren's making you look gorgeous…"_

_"I'm amazing at makeup," offers Lauren, moves onto Chloe's other eye. _

_"She is pretty good, Chloe," Miss Lewis agrees. "I think she's on a mission to make you look like… oh, I don't know, who's that Scots Gaelic singer you like? The one you play me in the safe space?"_

_"Julie Fowlis," Lauren answers. "She's your favourite, Chloe, right? Don't move, I'm evening out your eyeshadow. I'm making her look like a blonde Julie Fowlis, but the 80s high school version. I've looked her up online and everything, so I know what kind of blush tone to go for."_

_"There you go, then, Chloe, how could you possibly say no to that? Lauren's making you look like a superstar, and then you're going to go and smash it. I know you can. We've still got plenty of time, we can go and practice somewhere quiet if you think that might help you relax a bit. Once Lauren's finished with you."_

_"I'm nearly done, Chloe," Lauren promises. "Okay, open your eyes. I just need to do your mascara and then you're done. Do you like it?"_

_Chloe blinks at her reflection in the mirror, faintest trace of a smile on her face, hidden deep beneath the fear and the anxiety, but just about there. "I look like a different person."_

_"You look amazing," Lauren tells her firmly, hugs her tightly the way teen girls do. "You look seriously amazing."_

_"What if I freeze, though?" Chloe asks anxiously, bites her lip, fidgeting with her hands again. _

_"You won't freeze," Miss Lewis tries to reassure her. "I know you can do it, Chloe."_

_"And so do I," Lauren agrees. "It doesn't matter if you don't believe you can do it, because we all believe you can for you. And you will after tonight, because you'll have done it in front of an audience once."_

_"And Miss Caimbeul is going to be backstage with the prompts," Miss Lewis reminds her. "So if you do freeze, it'll be fine, won't it? And the rest of it you can just style out. Okay? No one will know if you don't get the words quite right, they'll think you're amazing anyway. And if you can do this, you can do anything, can't you? Hey? Anything you put your mind to, I know you can. Don't do that, sweetpea. Don't scratch your hands like that, you don't want to have to go to the medical room right before you go on, do you? I'm too scared of your mum to let you go on stage with cuts all over your hands."_

_"My mum isn't coming tonight," says Chloe quietly._

_"No, I know, but nothing gets past your mum. Your mum is coming to see you, though, isn't she, Chloe? When was it you said she was coming to watch you, Friday?"_

_Chloe nods. "She can't get out of work early enough until then."_

_"Well, your mum's going to see your best performance then, if she's coming on closing night. You'll know you can do it by then, won't you, you'll be totally relaxed and you'll just enjoy it. And, remind me, is there anyone coming to watch you this evening?"_

_"Just my nana."_

_"And my mum and dad," Lauren tells her. "And Mhairi's dad and step mum, and her stepsisters."_

_"You've basically got your own personal cheer squad, then, haven't you, Chloe?" Miss Lewis encourages her, tries to snap her out of the panic she knows she's sinking into, and fast. _

_"Your adoring fans," Lauren offers, moves onto brushing Chloe's hair, pins the front, reaches for the hairspray. _

_"Exactly. Your adoring fans. And your nana's sworn to secrecy still, is she?"_

_Chloe nods silently._

_She's shaking. _

_Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all, Miss Lewis curses. _

_"Well, your mum's going to have the best surprise ever when she comes to see you on Friday, isn't she? I'm so going to have to try and get a photo of her face for you, the moment she realises. Right, Lauren, are you done making Chloe look like Julie Fowlis meets Janey from the 80s? We've still got a while, Chloe, why don't we go down to the safe space and practice your lines? Yeah? Come on, then. Do you want Lauren to come, too?"_

* * *

**Glasgow, May, 1990**

_"And you had no idea you were pregnant?" _

_She can't read the expression on the neonatologist's face, can't quite gage whether what's to come is a lecture on how ridiculously irresponsible she is, pathetic, useless mother before she's even begun, too young, too naïve, too self-centred and stupid, or whether there's going to be just a degree of compassion and understanding, acknowledgement that ranting and sighing and judging her now isn't going to help the tiny, poorly baby lying in the incubator. _

_She's so small that her skin is practically see-through, and she's still not opened her eyes in all the… the however many hours she's been in the world, not properly, and she fitted on just Ange's forearm, could be held with one hand, before the ambulance finally arrived and she was placed into the incubator at the hospital._

_She'd felt feather-light, no weight to her at all, barely there, as she'd run through the backstreets to the SARC, clutched her tiny, cold body tightly to her chest, and begged her to figure out how to fill her lungs with oxygen, to breathe._

_She'd begged her to live, and her tiny little miracle had listened, clung on. _

_But she's still got an awfully long way to go. _

_And so, screw it, Ange decides. It doesn't matter anymore. _

_Not for her, at least. _

_But it might make a difference for her beautiful little girl she's already let down so terribly. _

_It might help if they understand why she's so ill, so worryingly tiny for only one month premature, looks as though she surely must be much more than that. _

_"Like I told the other doctors," she says quietly, head down, can't even bear to look at the baby- her baby. "I knew I was pregnant. But I… I thought I was twenty weeks, at the most, I had no idea…" She shakes her head. "I only realised… it must have been about three weeks ago. I… I was… raped," she forces out, hates that word, the way it sounds, the way it makes her feel, the memories it brings back. "Eight months ago. I… I suppose I just didn't notice my periods had stopped, I… I had other things on my mind, I guess. And I… I didn't look pregnant," she whispers. "I didn't feel… She's not my first baby," Ange admits shakily. _

_She hates talking about Darren. She hates it, because she knows the judgemental looks will be coming once whoever it is she's talking to does the maths and realises how young she must have been, hates dragging those memories back up to the surface again, her other beautiful baby she desperately wanted to be able to cope with, and she couldn't, just couldn't. _

_But she has to, now, because it's a missing piece of the puzzle, the only thing that might just save her._

_"I… I had my first baby when I was fourteen," Ange explains quietly. "I… I was too young, he was adopted. But it was… it was completely different, when I was pregnant with him. I didn't look pregnant, this time, I didn't feel pregnant, not until a few weeks ago. So when I did the test and it came back positive, I just… I thought I must have been four months at the most, I looked about the same as I did when I was four months pregnant with my son. And I know I should have gone for a scan then, I know I should have, but I… I was worried about abnormalities," she admits, voice trembling. "I stopped the drugs and the alcohol as soon as I realised, I managed to cut down the smoking, but I just… I was scared I'd damaged her, I was scared she'd be signed over to Social Services before she was even born…"_

_"We wouldn't have done that," the neonatologist tells her quietly, squeezes Ange's shoulder. "We would never have done that, sweetheart. Not under the circumstances. You've been through something truly awful, and if you didn't know…"_

_"But I still did it." The tears are starting up again now, and Ange shudders, reaches her hand in through the incubator window, places her little finger across her baby's tiny palm. _

_She doesn't squeeze back. _

_"The doctor who treated her yesterday said she's tiny and her development's delayed because I was pumping her body with so much crap." Ange continues, hangs her head, ashamed. "He said she's almost four weeks behind where she should be, but she has to be thirty-six weeks, she's either thirty-six weeks or she's twenty, and she obviously isn't twenty, is she? I thought… I really was going to go to my GP last week, I really, honestly was, but then she… she'd stopped moving, I hadn't felt her move for a week when I went into labour and I thought she was dead, I was convinced she was dead until I was holding her and I managed to get her breathing, I thought she was going to be… I thought I'd miscarried and I didn't know what to do, I was scared if I came into A and E they'd call the police and I'd be…"_

_"Oh, sweetheart. We wouldn't have done that. We would never have done that," the neonatologist murmurs soothingly. "It's not just about your baby, my love. It's about you, too. We're not just here for your baby, we're here to support you as well. Okay? It happens. Some women don't realise they're pregnant until they're in labour, it's not as rare as you might think. You've had a terrible, terrible shock, haven't you? Is there anyone we can call for you? Angel?" the neonatologist asks gently. "Your mum, maybe? I don't think you should be by yourself. It's a lot to cope with, having a baby on NICU, but at your age, after everything you've been through…"_

_"Can you call the SARC on Edinburgh Road and ask for Chloe?" Ange asks faintly. "I… I haven't told my mum yet. But Chloe… I saw Chloe when I was at the SARC after I was raped, I… I went to her, after I… after I gave birth," she forces out at last, shudders, doesn't want to remember. "Chloe came in with her in the ambulance yesterday, she… she's the only person I've told. About the baby, I mean. But about… about how I got pregnant, too," she admits shakily. "I haven't told anyone else, I went to the SARC after it happened but I never told anyone else, I couldn't…"_

_"Okay. Okay, darling, I'll give the SARC a call and see if I can get hold of Chloe, okay?"_

_"Thank you. What's…" She trails off, shakes her head. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, I… I'm I can't keep her, there's no way my mum will let me keep her, it's not…"_

_"You can ask me whatever you want, sweetheart. It doesn't matter if you're planning on having her adopted or not, right now you can ask me whatever you want."_

_"What do the numbers mean?" Ange gestures to the monitor beside the incubator. "How do I know if… if she's…"_

_"She's stable. She's doing much better now she's on the ventilator," the neonatologist soothes. "So you see that number there? That's her blood oxygen, that one's out of 100. That's hugely improved on when we first admitted her. The one next to it is her heartrate, it's still a little low, but she hasn't had another apnoea episode for a good few hours now. But we'll keep monitoring her. The main thing we're worried about just now is the vomiting. Her abdomen's severely distended, what with that and the apnoea, her temperature instability and the bradychardia, we could well be looking at something called necrotising enterocolitis. That would mean significant damage to parts of her bowel. We're going to have to run some tests on her over the next few hours, but we'll keep you updated, okay? If that's what you want. You don't have to make any kind of decision about the future at this stage, Angel, you're still in shock. Understandably so." _

_"Could she…" Ange trails off, isn't sure she wants to know the answer. "Could she die?"_

_The neonatologist grimaces, takes a deep breath. _

_"I'm not going to lie to you, Angel," she says at last. "You're not a child anymore. Legally, maybe, for another year, but I'm not going to treat you like one, not after everything you've been through. I think you deserve to be spoken to like an adult. Yes," she says heavily. "Yes, if it is necrotising enterocolitis, she could die. But I promise you, I'm going to do everything I can to stop that from happening." She pauses, watches Ange's face carefully for a reaction. "Have you thought about a name for her?"_

_Yes, Ange wants to tell her. _

_Chloe. She's Chloe. _

_She's had her heart set on Chloe ever since she realised she was pregnant, Chloe after the rape crisis support worker at the SARC, because god only knows where she'd be now if it wasn't for her, she'd thought three weeks ago, and it's even more true now Chloe has saved her little girl's life, got her breathing, gotten them both into A and E, to the medical attention they desperately needed and she was too stupid to get them both herself. _

_She'd known, somehow, always known, she was a she. _

_Chloe, after Chloe at the SARC, Ange had decided, and then she'd looked it up in the baby name book at the local library, and that was when she'd known. _

_Chloe. _

_Chloe, like Demeter, Chloe meaning new life, new hope, in Greek, green shoots in spring. _

_Chloe, her fresh start. _

_Except she can't keep her. _

_This tiny, desperately sick yet serenely beautiful little girl was never going to be hers, and she was a fool to ever allow herself to believe otherwise. _

_"No," Ange lies. "I don't… I don't want to get attached to her. I can't keep her. My mum won't go along with that again, not after how hard I found it with my… with my first baby. I… I know I'm going to have to give her up for adoption, I… I know I should just get it over with, I shouldn't really be here. But I… she's going to be on NICU for a while, isn't she? So I… I don't need to do anything just yet, right? I can sit with her? I just…" Ange closes her eyes, fights to keep the tears from falling. "I just want her to be mine for a little bit longer." _

_The neonatologist smiles sympathetically. "You can stay with her as long as you like, sweetheart. I think it would be a good idea for you to call your mum, I think you could do with her support right now. But you're over sixteen. We won't be involving your mum unless that decision comes from you."_

_"I am going to tell her," Ange whispers, brushes the tip of her little finger gently against her baby's palm. "I am, I promise. I just… I just need some time to work out what the hell I'm going to say."_

_"Okay. Okay, I'm going to go and make that call for you, see if I can get through to Chloe? Alright? I won't be long. And then I'll be back to check on her again."_

_Ange nods. "Thank you. Is there… Is there anything I can read? You know, about what's wrong with her? Apnoea, Ne… neca…"_

_"Necrotising enterocolitis."_

_"Necrotising enterocolitis," Ange repeats. "And everything else that's wrong with her. I… I want to know everything, I need to know everything. I need to understand what's happening to her."_

_It's there, sat beside her baby girl in a NICU incubator, covered in tubes and wires and monitors and dangerously ill, that Ange does a total U-turn from her current school drop-out status and sets her heart upon becoming a doctor. _

_For her little girl, for the tiny baby that she can't bring herself to name, not officially. _

_Because if she can somehow keep her, if there's a lifetime ahead of them both in which she's hers, her daughter, Ange is determined to learn to take care of her properly. _

_To keep her safe. _

_She vows that day that if she can be her mother, she'll do whatever it takes to keep her safe._

_She's never going to let her down, not again._

_Not like this._

* * *

**St Andrews, September, 1992**

_"Chloe? Chloe, sweetheart, it's okay. It's okay, Mummy's coming back. Okay? Mummy's coming back, I promise."_

_She's huddled in the phone box across the street, around the corner past the bus stop by the off-license, soaked through because she's run here through the pouring rain from the halls of residence phone, time was up and so were the allocated times of the three students behind her in the queue, sacrificed their own calls home for tonight when they realised it was her, the teen mum, that her little girl was having a meltdown, reality of 'Mummy's off to medical school' hitting her like a tonne of bricks and sobbing her little heart out. _

_The trouble is, her words of comfort aren't making it all any better. _

_If anything, Chloe only sobs harder. _

_"Mummy's coming home in three days, Chloe, remember?" Ange tries desperately. "Mummy's coming home for the weekend in three days, okay? I love you so, so much, I'm going to give you the biggest cuddle when I see you. Alright? Three days. That's nothing is it, do you remember what three days looks like on your chart? Three more sleeps. Three more sleeps and then you'll see me."_

_"Mummy," Chloe sobs, not just a normal toddler crying fit, Ange realises with a sickening feeling; complete and utter heartbreak. "Mummy, Mummy…"_

_"I know," Ange whispers. "I know, sweetheart, I know it's really, really hard. But we're going to see each other really, really soon, alright? Mummy will see you really, really soon."_

_"Mummy. Mummy, I miss you," Chloe protests quietly, and Ange thinks her heart might just break. _

_Not just at her daughter's words, the meaning there, but because Chloe definitely wasn't combining four words together like that when she left her with her own mum just over a week and a half ago, watched them drive away up the path towards the motorway, back to Aberdeen. _

_She's going to miss out on so much. _

_"I know, honey bug. I know, I miss you too. But I'm coming back. Okay? I'm coming back in three days. Three more sleeps. And then I'm going to spend the whole weekend with you, because I love you, and I miss you so, so much. Alright? So what you need to do Chloe is go to sleep. Yeah? It's bedtime, isn't it?"_

_"Cha-n ei." Her daughter hiccups furiously through her tears, doesn't quite manage it, and Ange is sure there's supposed to be an 'L' on the end._

_"Oh, has Nana been using you as her little Gallic guinea pig again?"_

_"Nana ho-wur," says Chloe, stops sobbing just about long enough to force it out, and despite it all, Ange has to smile. _

_Chloe's speech is still atrocious. _

_Maybe she hasn't missed so much in a week and a half, after all._

_"Oh, Nana had homework from university? Oh, I see. Do you know why Nana's speaking to you in Gallic, Chloe?"_

_"Ho-wur." _

_"Yes, I know she has her homework, but that isn't the only reason. Nana's speaking to you in Gallic because there's no word for no, and we all know that's your favourite word at the moment, isn't it? You have to try a bit harder to disagree in Gallic. Although you've worked that out already, haven't you, because you're just that clever."_

_"Chan ei."_

_"Well, I'm not sure that's technically correct. But you're wrong anyway. Yes, Chloe. Yes, you are, you're so, so clever. And I'm so proud of you. I'm going to see you in three sleeps, okay? Three sleeps. I love you."_

_"Luh-vu."_

_"You're so sweet, aren't you? Are you going to go to sleep, then? Yeah? For Mummy?"_

_"Soh," says Chloe sleepily, and Ange wants nothing more than to be there, pull the covers up around her, hug her tightly and never let her go. _

_"Oh, okay. Okay then, as there's no one waiting for this phone. Do you want your favourite? Yeah? Okay, I think we can manage that. At least there's no one to laugh at my terrible singing today."_

_She's sure she's going to be the laughing stock of her halls of residence forevermore, after all the times she's had to resort to this to get Chloe off to sleep over the phone already, and it's only the second week._

_"Feasgar ciùin an tùs a' Chèitein," she sings quietly, cringes at the slight flatness to her tone. "Nuair bha 'n ialtag annas na speuran…"_

_By the time she reaches the end of the first verse, she can hear the soft snuffles on the other end of the line, tell-tale sign that Chloe is fast asleep. _

* * *

Could she move properly, right after it happened to her?

Ange can't remember.

She knows her whole body felt unbearably sore, like she'd been running and running and running with no end in sight, by the time she stumbled into the SARC two days after it happened, her mind suddenly wandering to the microwave heat pack Chloe- not her Chloe, Chloe the rape crisis support worker at the SARC, Chloe her other lifeline, the one that came first- had given her that worked wonders, numbed the pain a little, at least, like nothing else seemed to, those few days.

She makes a mental note to rummage through the drawers of her bedside table, the bathroom cabinet, maybe the utility room cupboards, once they're home, see if she can find the heat packs she bought when she did her back in the year before last to try out on Chloe.

Chloe.

They're sat side by side on the back seat of Fletch's car; and the last time they were in here, a few hours ago, now, the back seat was pushed flat and he was lying motionless, she was battling to stabilise him, Chloe in the front seat dazed, trance-like, unresponsive.

Ange shudders.

She'd known then, Ange realises.

She'd been desperately pushing it to the back of her mind, trying to convince herself she was wrong because she couldn't afford to break down, lose the plot, had to hold herself together to keep Evan alive, save her little girl from the manslaughter charge she was so afraid would be coming her way if she were to fail.

But she'd known.

She'd spent those first two days after it happened to her in that same trance-like state, before the SARC, before Chloe (not her Chloe, not then, her Chloe's namesake).

She'd known.

She just hadn't wanted it to be real.

But perhaps she was in an awful lot of pain right after it happened to her, too, Ange considers now, Chloe curled up into her side, head buried in her chest, seat belt can't possibly be positioned to work properly but that's the least of their worries right now.

Perhaps she was just too shell-shocked, too traumatised and numb, to notice.

Chloe is clearly in pain, sore, struggling to move, as much as she's denying it.

Ange knows she is, because she practically had to pick her up and lift her into onto the back seat of Fletch's car when he pulled up outside the SARC entrance, watched her struggle to work out how best to approach it for a few moments too many and decided she just couldn't bear it.

"Mum?" Chloe whispers worriedly, lifts her head just a little. "Mum?"

"Hmm?"

"We're going to the police station, right?"

"Yep, we're going to the police station," Ange confirms. "Just to collect your things from the cottage, and then we're going back to mine, okay? They don't need anything else from you, sweetheart, it's over. You don't have to worry about…"

"No." Chloe shakes her head. "No, it's not that. I'm…" She closes her eyes, shakes her head, turns even paler than she is already, as though in dread. "I need my prototype stuff. I'm supposed to be updating the funding board on my aortic valve research tomorrow…"

If the circumstances weren't all so heartbreakingly awful, Ange might just have laughed.

Chloe.

Her stubborn, fiercely intelligent, passionate, utterly dedicated little Chloe.

"No," Ange says firmly, hugs her tighter. "No, sweetheart. No, you aren't."


End file.
